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Clean

On’yomiじょう・せい
Kun’yomiきよ.める・きよ.い
MeaningsClean, Purify, Cleanse, Exorcise, Manchu Dynasty
JLPT N1 9 strokes #1351 most common Secondary school Radical water
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 浄

Stroke order is not decoration — it determines how the character looks handwritten and how dictionaries index it.

9 strokes
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Draw it on screen and be marked on stroke order and direction.

分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 浄

Almost every kanji is built from a small set of reusable parts. Learn the parts once and you stop memorising thousands of unrelated shapes.

Why it sounds the way it does. The part is the phonetic component — it carries the sound rather than the meaning. That is why 浄 is read じょう. Roughly two-thirds of all kanji work this way, which makes unfamiliar readings guessable once you spot the pattern.
部首 · Radical

The radical of 浄

Radical 85 of 214
Water

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 浄 is filed under (water) — radical number 85 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

Other kanji built on 水

練習 · Practice

Drill 浄 right now

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Clean じょう・せい きよ.める・きよ.い
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 浄

Kanji are almost never met alone. These are the most common words built from this character, ordered by how often they actually appear in Japanese.

浄化 じょうか purification; cleanup (e.g. of politics); purge
洗浄 せんじょう washing; cleansing; cleaning
浄水 じょうすい clean water; purified water
自浄 じじょう self-purification; self-cleansing
浄化槽 じょうかそう water-purification tank; septic tank
浄土真宗 じょうどしんしゅう Jōdo Shinshū (offshoot of the Jōdo sect); True Pure Land School
浄土 じょうど pure land (esp. the Western Pure Land paradise of Amitabha); (Buddhist) paradise; Pure Lan
清浄 せいじょう pure; clean; purity
浄瑠璃 じょうるり jōruri; type of dramatic recitation accompanied by a shamisen (associated with Japanese pu
浄土宗 じょうどしゅう Pure Land sect (of Buddhism); Jodo (sect)
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 浄

Japanese has far more kanji than syllables, so one reading is shared by many characters. These are the ones you will confuse with 浄 — learn them together, not separately.

画数 · 9 strokes

Other 9-stroke kanji

Useful when looking a character up by stroke count — and a common source of visual mix-ups.

頻度 · Frequency

Next in the frequency list

浄 is the 1351st most common kanji in written Japanese. Learning in frequency order is the fastest route to reading real text.

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質問 · Questions

About the kanji 浄

What does the kanji 浄 mean?

浄 means Clean, Purify, Cleanse, Exorcise, Manchu Dynasty. It is the 1351st most common kanji in written Japanese.

How do you read the kanji 浄?

浄 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) じょう、せい; kun'yomi (native Japanese) きよ.める、きよ.い.

How many strokes does 浄 have?

浄 is written with 9 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.

What level is the kanji 浄?

It appears at JLPT level N1, and Japanese schoolchildren learn it in secondary school.

What is the radical of 浄?

The radical of 浄 is 水 (water), radical number 85 of the 214 Kangxi radicals. The radical is the component a dictionary files the character under, and it usually points at the character's meaning.

What parts is the kanji 浄 made of?

浄 is built from 氵 (water) and 争 (contend). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.

Why is 浄 read じょう?

浄 contains 争 as its phonetic component — the part that carries the sound rather than the meaning, which is why 浄 is read じょう. Roughly two-thirds of all kanji are built this way, so spotting the phonetic component often lets you guess the reading of a character you have never seen.

What words use the kanji 浄?

Common words written with 浄 include 浄化 (じょうか, purification; cleanup (e.g. of politics); purge); 洗浄 (せんじょう, washing; cleansing; cleaning); 浄水 (じょうすい, clean water; purified water).

Which kanji sound the same as 浄?

浄 shares a reading with 政 (せい), 生 (せい), 上 (じょう), 定 (じょう), 場 (じょう), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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